1970 – A Saskatchewan Court convicts 17-year-old hippie David Milgaard of murder; he is sentenced to life in prison. He spent 23 years in jail until April 14, 1992 when DNA evidence proves him innocent of all charges.

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1648 – Eighty Years’ War: The Treaty of Münster is signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain.

1649 – King Charles I of England is beheaded.

1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years.

1790 – The first boat specializing as a lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne.

1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened.

1820 – Edward Bransfield sights the TrinityPeninsula and claims the discovery of Antarctica.

1826 – The MenaiSuspension Bridge, considered the world’s first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales is opened.

1835 – In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson.

1841 – A fire destroys two-thirds of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

1847 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco.

1858 – The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of the Hallé Orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.

1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.

1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in Mayerling.

1894 – Pneumatic hammer patented by Charles King of Detroit

1911 – The destroyer USS Terry (DD-25) makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.

1911 – The Canadian Naval Service becomes the Royal Canadian Navy.

1913 – The United Kingdom’s House of Lords rejects the Irish Home Rule Bill.

1925 – The Government of Turkey throws Patriarch Constantine VI out of Istanbul.

1930 – The world’s first radiosonde is launched in Pavlovsk, USSR.

1933 “The Lone Ranger” premiers on ABC radio

1933 – Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.

1943 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. TheUSS Chicago (CA- 29) is sunk and a U.S. destroyer is heavily damaged by Japanese torpedoes.

1943 – Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine: The Nazi Gestapo commences mass shootings of Jews from Letychiv Ghetto. 200 surviving Jews from Letychiv slave labor camp are ordered to undress and are shot with a machine-gun into a ravine. Some 7,000 Jews were murdered in Letychiv.

1944 – World War II: United States troops land on Majuro.

1945 – The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, leading to the deadliest maritime disaster in known history, killing roughly 9,000 people.

1945 – World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: 126 American Rangers and Filipino resistance liberate 500 prisoners from the Cabanatuan POW camp.

1945 – World War II: Hitler gives his last ever public address, a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power.

1500 – Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil.

1531 – Lisbon, Portugal hit by an earthquake–thousands die.

1564 – The Council of Trent issued its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

1565 – Battle of Talikota, fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Islamic sultanates of the Deccan, leads to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent.

1589 – Job is elected as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

1699 – Treaty of Carlowitz signed.

1700 – The magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America, as evidenced by Japanese records.

1736 – Stanislaus I of Poland abdicates his throne.

1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Sydney Harbour to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent. Commemorated as Australia Day.

1808 – Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.

1837 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.

1838 – Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States